Author Tom Dresser Talks about his New Book: Disaster Off Martha's Vineyard

Author Tom Dresser will talk about his latest book, Disaster Off Martha’s Vineyard, on Wednesday, May 16, 5:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library. Dresser’s book chronicles the 1884 City of Columbus shipwreck off Gay Head.

Twenty-eight years before the Titanic, in 1884, the steamship City of Columbus ran aground off Gay Head. Although the ship was fully equipped with life jackets and life boats, more than a hundred passengers and crew drowned in the frigid waters.  At the time, it was the most disastrous shipwreck off the New England coast.

Dresser explores the background of the ship, dramatic details of the wreck on the Devil’s Bridge shoal, and the rescue by Wampanoag tribe members who risked their own lives to bring passengers to shore.  The book delves into the aftermath of the official inquiry, court battles, and ghoulish visits to the site of the disaster.

Mr. Dresser, an island resident, began writing as an eleven-year-old editor of his local newspaper The Springdale News. During his decades as an elementary school teacher and a nursing home administrator, Mr. Dresser published monthly newsletters to keep his public informed.  In the 1990s he self-published a quartet of guides: Cape Ann, Lawrence and Haverhill in Massachusetts and Mount Desert Maine.

Later Mr. Dresser wrote “Tommy's Tour of the Vineyard,” based on the bus tours he offers tourists. His big break was in 2007 when his outline for writing an in-depth account of an unsolved 1940 murder in Oak Bluffs drew the attention of The History Press.  “Mystery on the Vineyard” was published in April 2008, followed by “In My Life”, “It Was Forty Years Ago Today”, and “African Americans on Martha’s Vineyard”. He publishes articles in local magazines and newspapers and is working on some novels.

Admission to his book talk is free and sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Public Library.